


sensitive to faith, not denial

by orphan_account



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Angst, Aromantic Jake English, M/M, Sad, Unhealthy Relationships, idk what else to tag this as, its just
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-22
Updated: 2020-03-22
Packaged: 2021-02-28 22:06:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,024
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23264419
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Jake’s a bit ditzy, they say. He’s a slut, others sneer, regardless of the fact that you’ve been in a committed relationship for over four years now. You’re trying. You swear you are. But sometimes you wonder if that’s really the truth or just another one of the lies you need to continue breathing. The spot where your heart is supposed to be feels hollow and empty and even though you can feel it beating, pushing the blood through your veins, the sound is muffled and distorted like a perverted mockery of the real thing.Alternatively titled "Jake reflects on his relationship with Dirk".
Relationships: Jake English/Dirk Strider
Comments: 2
Kudos: 20





	sensitive to faith, not denial

**Author's Note:**

> look at that it's homestuck in 2020. hope you enjoy this.

You lie a lot these days. 

It’s not malicious, not at all, its more that the lies have become somewhat of a necessity. Because if you don’t have your thrown together half truths and carefully chosen deceptions to fall back on then what’s left for you? 

The thought scares you more than you want to admit because as much as you try to hide it, push it all down deep deep below where no one will stumble across the reality that makes your chest ache, you started suspecting long ago that you might be broken behind your façade. 

Jake’s a bit ditzy, they say. He’s a slut, others sneer, regardless of the fact that you’ve been in a committed relationship for over four years now. You’re trying. You swear you are. But sometimes you wonder if that’s really the truth or just another one of the lies you need to continue breathing. The spot where your heart is supposed to be feels hollow and empty and even though you can feel it beating, pushing the blood through your veins, the sound is muffled and distorted like a perverted mockery of the real thing.  
Sometimes you wonder if you’ll ever be able to love anyone. If you’ll ever be able to find your heart somewhere in your twisted chest. You don’t like the answers your brain comes up with. 

So you pretend and you try. 

He asks you if you love him every night before you turn of the light. Closes his eyes and breathes, a seemingly serene smile on his face that’s just a bit too shaky to be real. 

“Do you love me, Jake?” 

And your answer is the same every time, mechanic like clockwork, more habit than meaning. You say “Of course, darling” and he answers “I love you, too” with a sigh and doesn’t mention the fact that you’ve never actually said the words and you’re glad because you think you’d shatter if you tried.  
He’s the one that’s splintered, sharp edges and razor blade smiles cutting into you at every turn, carving chunks out of your soft flesh, leaving you bleeding red onto a mess of shards, but you’re not sure if you might not be more broken than he is. 

After all, a splintered mirror can be put together again, even if the scars might remain and hurt. But what do you do if a piece of what you’re trying to fix is missing? The gaping hole that remains will render it broken forever no matter how much you try to stuff it with other things or pretend it isn’t there. 

When he smiles at you, fierce eyes hidden behind his shades, the inside of your mouth tastes like blood and oranges and you want to cry. Your throat is dry and you swallow around the lump in it, giving your best to manage a smile of your own. It works well; you’ve had practice. It doesn’t work well enough to fool him. 

He tells you your eyes remind him of the jungle and adventure and that you smell like freshly cut grass and rain. You tell him his eyes remind you of the sunset and that he smells like motor oil and sweat with a perfectly molded cheeky grin that he playfully whacks you on the back of your head for.  
The soft grin that lights up his face despite the darkness in him while he does it makes you wish he smelled like nothing at all. Because in reality his eyes remind you of a firestorm consuming everything in its wake and he smells like smoke and ashes and you want to get away, squirm out of his embrace because it’s too much and too hot and his flames are singing your insides, burning you alive and his scent chokes you, makes you want to gasp for air and scramble to safety but you can’t. 

You can’t because you’re supposed to be in love with him. You’re supposed to love him because he loves you and you should want this, should be over the moon that he loves you so much, so unconditionally and all consumingly. 

But you know you don’t and you aren’t and no matter how much you play pretend it won’t change. Because you’re broken and you don’t have a heart and you’re scared, no, terrified of the day it will all come crashing down. 

Because you know that it will. You don’t know when and why but if there’s one thing you know about him it’s that he’s not stupid. He knows, at least to some extent, about your missing heart and your lies and your brokenness.  
What you don’t know is why he doesn’t bring it up, doesn’t confront you or scream at you about it with an anger so cold it burns more than the hellfire in his eyes ever could. You know he’d be capable of doing it. 

Maybe he’s just better at pretending than you are. He’s better than you at so many things. 

Or maybe it’s a morbid curiosity that drives him. Maybe he wants to pry your chest open with his sharp fingers. To look inside the void that swallowed up your heart when you weren’t looking with eyes full of liquid fire that drips right out of them when he's not being careful. 

Maybe he wants to fill the hole with a piece of his own heart. But god does he have enough of those pieces already. You think one more might break him for good. 

Because even if a mirror can be put together again, too many splinters and shards leave the final image a distorted and mangled mess, unrecognizable and unloved. 

At the end of the day, of every day, you don’t know why he does what he does and says what he says and you desperately hold onto your façade for a little longer. 

You hope despite everything that you can continue breathing for a bit before he decides to burn up your lies and your lungs alike and leave you breathless and dead. 

Hope is all you ever really had, after all.

**Author's Note:**

> title is lyrics from evil by interpol.


End file.
